As an antithesis to this thread, and because it’s nice to hear good things.
Almost everywhere I’ve lived as an adult, I’ve had some really good neighbors (the ones who were bad were really bad, but the ones who were good were GREAT.)
In our previous neighborhood, the lady across the street was my husband’s second mother. He’d lived there since he was four, and grew up with her sons. When I married him, she adopted me, too. I still love my Eleanor.
In our current neighborhood, the ones to our right, and the ones kitty-corner to the right, are brothers. They are both married with kids, and they’re good people.
The ones to the left…well, she’s our new “extra mom”. And he’s terrific, too. Wonderful, warm, loving, hard-working (now retired) folks who love us to pieces. And across from them is another retired couple. Awesome folks. The three of us women-folks have “afternoon tea*” together some weekends.
Across the street directly is a family with a LOT of kids. They’re not the best neighbors (or parents, for that matter) but they’re still friendly, polite people.
*Okay, it’s not tea, but it is a sort of tea-colored beverage of the adult sort.;)
I’m sick today, and I keep thinking about my last neighbors in Cameroon. I lived in a walled off compound (quite typical for the area) and I shared the compound with a young family and an old woman.
If I was sick, they would be at my door with food, even if they had little to share. The woman would just knock on my door, hand me a pot full of more food than I could possibly eat, and run away. They didn’t speak French, so I could only communicate very basic things to them. But they were still so generous and helped me in a million ways. The little kids in the compound were so cute and loving. They didn’t get a ton of attention at home, so they spent a lot of time in my yard hanging out with me. They were always polite and well behaved and just full of joy. I miss them so much!
Nothing extraordinary for us. On one side, we have the couple who work at a local hospital. She’s a nurse and he’s a stationary engineer. When they’re home, they go out of their way to be nice. One day, she came over to apologize for her parents being over and having the TV volume up. We never heard a thing, actually. More recently, she and I were heading for the mailbox at the same time, and she was concerned that I was OK. It was a weekday, so I had to be sick and taking the day off, right? Actually, it was a telecommute day. More than once, they’ve picked up the phone and called us to ask if we meant to leave the garage door open. :smack:
Across the street, the young buck attorney does not live up to the stereotypes of that profession. He looks after our dog if we’re away, and we look after his cats if he’s away. And more than once, I’ve gone over to close his garage door after he’s left for the day.
We have two unrelated, almost-teenaged boys in the complex who are respectful, friendly, well-behaved, kind to animals, and do chores around the place.
And there’s a little seven-year-old running around all the time who speaks nicely to our dogs, just adopted some homeless cats (with some help from his parents) and enjoys helping in the semi-annual “patrol around the property, picking up trash, and stream clean-up” day.
For me, it’s my whole street. I live on a block-long street with a cul-de-sac. Everybody’s friendly and we have a couple of parties a year, one a block party with moon bounce and lots of water balloons (i.e. kids run wild), everybody grills and drinks to their hearts’ content, the other a progressive dinner…
That’s part of what keeps five people crammed into that little brick box on the corner.
I’m in a situation where I’m the awesome neighbor to someone else.
Across the road from the 2nd driveway live Fred and Sarah, an elderly black couple who don’t have 2 dimes to rub together.
In the 3 years we’ve been in the VunderLair, VWife and I have:
-Given them groceries on several occasions;
-Taken their trash to the dump;
-Loaned their son the pickup truck when he had his plates confiscated for non-insurance of his truck;
-Been over on 3 occasions for medical calls, the last one being last night;
-Outside of the groceries, treated them with the fixings of Thanksgiving dinner;
-Bailed them out of a foreclosure by the county for being $65 in arrears in property taxes.
Fred tells people that we’re their guardian angels. I reply one of two ways: “I don’t know if I can handle that kind of pressure”, or, “SHHH! You’ll ruin my bad boy reputation!”
Neighbors in the awesome or at least pretty good category:
L.: nice lady who tends a lovely garden, visits and trades food, brings gifts, and so on.
D: man who cares for his family and works but still finds time to help others with putting up a car canopy or anything else.
S: rarely seen but always nice. O, J, and several others are in this group as well.
Unknown name: they help me scoop up leaves into the green barrel and let me use their barrels when mine are full.
J and C: she takes walks with me, trades food, and her hubby did some mowing for me when the weather was stinking hot and humid.
T and R: lovely folks; he did a great job of remodeling for me and helped me to road test my new used car (he was a mechanic in his previous occupation).
And yet my cousin won’t drive 20 damn miles to visit me (she insists that I come to her) because my neighborhood isn’t as fancy as hers, and she thinks I live on the wrong side of the tracks.
Whatever.
I grew up on one end of this neighborhood with super-awesome neighbors. My parents were dirt poor when I was born and the neighbor family helped raise us two kids. I don’t think we had one stitch of clothing that was not passed down from them until I was 10!
They moved away tho.
But, now I live on my own at the other end of this neighborhood and I have completely different neighbors but they’re great.
The eastern neighbors are a mom, a dad and two early-20s sons. The boys are smooooookin’ hot and play basketball shirtless a lot. pants er uh…oh yeah, but anyway the boys are really nice and the dad is quiet but nice. Mom is a piece of work - she’s pretty loud-mouthed. But very cool. She keeps a beautiful yard and is obsessed with gardening.
When I moved in I put a ton of work into tearing out some horrendous bushes in the front of the house. I was about to plant grass in the bare spot when she came over and told me she wanted to do up a flower bed for me. I said ok and she did all the work of putting in plants. Did a fantastic job! Of course, I have to keep it up but still I think it was very nice of her.
My western neighbors are a retired couple and are also very nice. He keeps a garden in the back and talks gardening with my uncle (who keeps a garden in my back yard). He shares his sauce tomatoes with us which are divine. This spring I had ordered too much mulch and asked him to take the extra. His wife was so happy about it and sent me a nice thank-you card.
I also noticed that he now runs his push mower down my part of the front ditch, which is cool because my lawn is cut with a tractor and I’d have to get out my own push mower to do it.
This end of the neighborhood is much more busy and active - and young - than where I grew up. There’s always some people outside and I don’t mind the late-night noise because it makes me feel safe to know that the younger guys are out there. I feel like they’re keeping an eye on things.
I have good neighbors in a run-down apartment complex that’s notorious for bad tenants. No stomping, no loud music, they hold the door for me if I’m coming in or out with stuff in my hands, no one steals anyone’s newspapers or deliveries. We shoo kids away from everyone’s cars, give each other jumpstarts. The guys downstairs always offer me a beer when I pass. A few times, I’ve heard my neighbor across the hall telling door-to-door folks to not knock on my door since I sleep days… I’m pretty lucky to have neighbors thoughtful enough to look out for me, especially since I know I come across as the local recluse.
VunderBob, bless you for being the awesome neighbor.
My two neighbors and I trade plants/cuttings, and food back and forth. They check on me when I’m home sick, or if he’s out of town. I’ve picked up groceries for one of them on my way home from work more than once.
I truly love them, and they love me. It’s hard to describe to someone who’s never lived with true “neighbors” like this.
Oh, and every kid in the neighborhood calls me “Miss Rhonda” and I don’t even know half of their names, where they live, or anything…I just call them Buddy, or Sweetie or something, or just not use names. :o
It helps that we replaced the terror family of the neighborhood, whose daughter was certifiably crazy. We heard all kinds of stories about them for the first 6 months, and we still hear new ones occasionally. It had gotten so bad that there was a neighborhood meeting that the mailman - yes, the mailman - was invited to and attended on how to get rid of said family.
Anyhow - our neighbors are awesome:
for our immediate neighbors - we share a good 200-250’ of open property line. We each have about 1/2 acre - but our backyards are right next to each other with no fence, etc so we have the benefit of a very large slice of property with only half the maintenance
two doors down, our neighbor has two irish wolfhounds and a fenced in back yard. So it is nice to bring our dog over for doggie play time. She also is an alcohol enabler, and 2-3x per month we hang out at her place on the deck drinking wine, chatting and having a good ole time.
Said neighbor also just installed an endless pool this summer, and has very generously offered free access to it (I’ve taken her up on the offer a few times so far - I swam in high school and enjoyed it, but lap swimming in a gym pool is a pain). One in a million opportunity, and too good to pass up. In return, I will be making her a couple batches of wine per year.
The lady across the street also has a fenced in yard, and is also an alcohol enabler. She also has a dog similar size to ours, so when the wolfhounds are a little too much, our dog can go over there and play. The dogs just like playing with other dogs, sometimes.
The other immediate neighbor is just a pleasant neighbor - quiet, waves when she sees us, stops by occasionally to chat.
We live in a very dog-friendly neighborhood, so any time someone needs a favor with dog sitting or letting the dog out to the bathroom or feeding them because life has gotten in the way (late @ work, travelling for work, family related events that take the weekend), neighbors are readily available and willing to chip in, and vice-versa. Saves the $$ and hassle of a kennel - no to mention the health issues.
Last fall when our water main broke, our immediate neighbors had no problem with the DPW connecting a hose from their spigot to ours so that we could have water until the main was fixed. The DPW guys said repeatedly that having neighbors be so agreeable so quickly was very strange.
I dont want to move, and I dont want any of our neighbors to move either.
I was reading the other horror story neighbor thread and realized how good my wife and I have it. All of my neighbors are great. I really can’t give every example, but I can tell explain how I realized it. Our house has a fairly large driveway. But, I figured I could shovel the snow in the winter. We’ve been having some pretty mild winters the last few years. The first winter, we got some snow. I’d go out and shovel, my neighbors on both sides have snowblowers and when they’d see me shoveling, both of them offered to let me borrow their blower on more than one occasion. I’d always decline, saying that the excercise was good for me, when I reality, I just didn’t want to impose.
Then we got an actual snow storm. Most of my drive way got buried under about 4’ of snow - and it was wet and heavy. I went out and started shoveling about the same time my neighbor to my right came out with his snowblower. He told me (again) that I was welcome to borrow it when he was done. I politley declined, but regretted it as soon as I started shovelling. It was hard, slow work. I was only at it for about 15mins when my neighbor on my left came out with his snowblower to clear the pile of snow the plow had left at the end of his drive - as he had already cleared his before the plow came through. When he saw me struggling, he didn’t even ask if I wanted help. He drove the snowblower over, pointed at the handlebars and said, “This one is the throttle, this one makes it go”. Then he left it idling in my driveway and walked back to his house. He didn’t even give me a chance to reject his offer. I really couldn’t have been happier. It would have taken me the better part of 3 hrs to finish it at the rate I was going. FTR, I’ve since bought a snowblower.
We’ve given stuff to our neighbors when they need it. A stick of butter, cup of sugar, a couple of gallons of gas for the weedeater. And we have no qualms about asking our neighbors for stuff either. Just a couple of weeks ago, I found out that I needed a full-sized truck to haul something that was too big for my Jeep. I went over to ask my neighbor if he could drive me to pick it up (I really didn’t want to ask to drive his truck). His wife was gone and he was watching the kids by himself so he couldn’t leave. I said, thanks anyway and turned to leave. He said, “Keys are in it go ahead.” It was a brand new truck - probably worth about $40K - he didn’t even give it a second thought.
Oh, yeah, my older neighbors and I have all traded pet-care responsibilities. One has two dogs, the other a cat, and I have my little zoo of dog/three cats/bird. None of us has any qualm about handing a key to the house over to the other.
My neighbours are great. It’s just simple but kind stuff. Like putting our bins out when we were away. We didn’t even need to ask them. Or when they were going away, they offered to let us use their driveway. (We normally have to park on the road.) They’ll always stop for a chat when we pass each other. They don’t play loud music, or have loud arguments.
We’ve only lived here a month but they’ve made us feel really welcome.
Next door neighbors, when I was growing up: they were a childless older couple (that had raised their nephew, grown before I was born). They became my surrogate grandparents as none of mine were anywhere around (dead and/or out of state).
A neighbor we had in North Carolina. We had keys to each other’s place, took care of each other’s pets, let servicepeople in for repair work, I even took her cat to the vet for her once.
I did some major yard work shortly after my first husband died – raking leaves, trimming overgrown bushes, and I ended up with huge piles of brush that I had no idea what to do with. I came home from work one day and it was all gone. My neighbor had put it in his pickup and taken it to the town compost pile.
My current neighbors brought us home-cooked meals (and pickled beets!) when I broke my hip and every spring they till up our garden plot. They’ve helped with downed limbs too – the guy has a front-loader.
My neighbor is a cop who works the late shift. One night he knocked on my door at 3:00 am. He’d been trying for 2 hours to catch my loose pony so he wouldn’t have to wake me up. Mind you, all I did was get some grain and shake the bucket and the pony came right up, but his heart was in the right place.
At my old house, my neighbor was a nighttime trucker. He and his wife would often help me trim back my trees, and once when some mean kids were coming into my yard harrassing my dogs through the fence, he came out and made them go away. Stupid kids, to tease a doberman and a german shepherd - they could’ve cleared the fence with no problem. On the other hand, I looked after their dogs when they’d go out of town, and removed stitches their vet missed when one of them was spayed, and called the fire department when their garage caught on fire.
Our previous neighbor was a doctor. We didn’t really know her that well, but she said we could call her if our kids were ever sick. We finally took her up on it one snowy day, mainly to see if we should bother to take our kid to our doctor. When I called her to see if we could come over, she insisted that it be a house call. She trudged through the snow and even wrote a prescription. Until the day we moved, our kids had their own neighborhood pediatrician!
I still love my Eleanor.
